When a Scot Gives His Heart

by Julie Johnstone

  “I can still see ye lying in the bright-green grass with yer dark hair spread all around ye,” he said in a velvet murmur. Her stomach tightened with his words. “Purple heather surrounded ye.”

  She was acutely aware that if he were to lean over and kiss her now, she would not stop him. “I’m famished,” she said, desperate for anything to think upon other than her yearning for him.

  He gave her a long, searching look, then stood without a word to retrieve the rabbit and a stick. Soon, he had the rabbit over the fire and was cooking it. His focus was singular on the task, and she realized that when he was engrossed with something, he would catch his lower lip with his teeth. Did their son have that same habit?

  “Tell me,” she said, determined to learn all about his life for their son’s sake. There would come a day, she was certain, when she would reveal to their son who his father was. There would come a time when her son would need him, and she would let him go, as she must. But not now. God help her for her selfishness, but not now. An ache sprang up in her throat, and she swallowed it. “Why was yer clan so weakened that ye were compelled to marry Edina? Did it have to do with the MacDonald Clan attacking yer clan?”

  He flicked his gaze to her as he slowly turned the rabbit. “I’m surprised ye dunnae ken the history from yer family.”

  “Are ye?” She could not keep the sarcasm from her voice. “I was set apart from my family most the time I lived at Innis Chonnell. I ate in my chamber as ordered. I was not allowed to attend the great hall when guests arrived, so I did nae ken the happenings of other clans. The servants feared speaking to me, for they feared my father’s anger. Maria was my only friend, but she had a family of her own and our time together was always in brief slivers. When I learned that Jean was nae my mother, that I was born of my father ravaging the MacLeod laird’s wife—”

  “God’s teeth,” Callum swore.

  “Aye,” Marsaili agreed. “He is nae a good man, which ye ken. I realized once I learned all of this that Jean had likely always hated me. I represented my father’s indiscretion, and he hated me, as well, I think.” She shrugged. “I kinnae say for certain.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was a foolish thing for me to be surprised that ye did nae ken the history.”

  “Nay. It was nae foolish. Ye could nae have kenned my life there.”

  “I suppose nae,” he said, looking angry. “I wish—Well, I wish I had kenned. I would have—”

  “Dunnae,” she interrupted, fearing to know such wishes. “Tell me the history that has weakened yer clan.”

  A resigned look settled on his face, and he nodded. “We’ve been under attack from the MacDonalds for years, as I told ye long ago at the Gathering, since King David’s advisors granted Urquhart Castle to my father in the king’s name for services rendered. At least that was the reason they gave.”

  She frowned. “Do ye mean to say yer father did nae aid the king?”

  “What? Och, nay.” He waved his free hand. “My father fought truly for the king, but the king, with his advisors telling him what to do, likely gave my father our particular castle because the MacDonald laird had wanted it and had demanded it. I imagine the king’s advisors wished to send a message to the laird that he was nae in a position to demand things from the king, even one who was but a child as David had been then.”

  “Wise advisors,” she murmured.

  “Aye,” Callum said. “Since Urquhart became our home, we have suffered frequent raids from the MacDonalds, which weakened us considerably. It did nae help matters that we were not near as large as the MacDonald clan in the first place, so my father sought out an alliance, and Edina’s father answered the call. He gave my father warriors, and in exchange, I was offered as Edina’s husband when we both grew older. I was but ten summers at the time the promise was given.”

  “And when ye broke yer promise to wed Edina…?”

  “We came under attack from the Gordon clan, as well,” he supplied. “When my father was killed, my mother begged me on her knees to mend the breach, but I could nae because of what I felt for ye.”

  He had that same tortured look he’d had earlier on his face. She stilled, her body screaming to touch him. She trembled with the effort to hold herself back.

  “Christ,” he muttered, slammed the pointed edge of the stick the rabbit was on into the ground, stood, and turned away from her. “Telling ye this does neither of us any good, yet I find I kinnae stop myself.”

  Her heart lurched at his words.

  He swung toward her, his gaze swirling with emotion. “Even when I thought ye dead, my grief, my love for ye, obliterated my desire to do what I should as laird.”

  She inhaled a long breath, each word hitting her like a pebble hitting water and sinking into her brain. Her chest felt as if it would burst, and a trembling took hold of her. “Why did ye think me dead?” she asked, fully believing him now.

  “Shortly after I returned home from the Gathering, we received a letter from yer father announcing that ye had drowned.”

  Her father’s betrayal roiled through her, making her feel ill with the knowledge. She had this space in time to say out loud how she had felt, how she still felt, or she was certain the words would never be uttered to him. Soon they would part, and he would marry another. She clenched her hands with indecision, nails biting into her palms.

  He caught his lower lip between his teeth in the same unconscious gesture that had made her wonder earlier if their son did the same thing, and the tension that had been building in her since the first moment she had seen him again in the tent at his tournament, drove the truth up. “I loved ye,” she blurted, her palms instantly damp. “Not that ye dunnae already ken it, but I loved ye. Completely. I wanted—” A sob tore through her for what she had lost with him and with their son.

  Before she realized he had even moved, he was a hairsbreadth from her. Pain twisted his features and shone in his eyes. He raised a hand toward her but stopped partway there. “I want to touch ye, lass, but I—”

  She grabbed his hand and pressed his open palm to her cheek. “I ken. I love ye still,” she said on a choked cry. “I love ye.”

  “By God, Marsaili, I love ye, too.” Misery was etched in every word, and raw pain glittered in his gaze.

  And then his mouth was on hers, crushing her to him. His lips moved possessively, devouring her, worshipping her, but he abruptly pulled back. He cupped her face, his touch so tender and the look in his eyes so reverent that she gasped. “Ye have my heart,” he vowed. “All of it. Ye have me in ways I did nae even ken were possible for a woman to take a man. I am yers, body and soul.”

  His confession released something within her. With a groan, she pushed his hands aside, kissing his neck and his chest, the passion and need pouring from her. She wanted him to take her in this moment, to pretend with her that they had not lost each other, that they had a future together.

  His hands came to her midriff, and he hoisted her off her feet as he brushed his lips to her flushed chest, then blazed a trail of kisses across her collarbone and up her neck. He growled, tangling his hands into her hair before pressing his mouth close to her ear. “I cannot resist ye,” he said, the desperate words hot against her ear. “I have struggled in vain to conquer my desire for ye.” His lips captured hers, more demanding than before. She tasted his searing desire, the kiss turning slow, causing each of her senses to spark to tingling life. He pulled back, his brown eyes glistening with need. “I kinnae find the strength to turn from ye any longer.”

  His words cut her to the quick and filled her with a hot joy that was drowned by sorrow so awful that tears could never express it. He pulled her face close to kiss her, and in that instant, she knew that as much as she wanted to, she could not allow him to endanger his clan for her again. She shoved against his chest with a strength she had not known she possessed. The moment their contact was broken, she began to tremble as her emotions spun wildly out of control. She hated him, yet she loved him
. She wanted to tell him of their son, but she feared that would be the very thing that would stop him from putting his clan first.

  She turned from him, fearing he’d see the secret in her eyes. “I kinnae,” she said, sucking in a jagged breath. She could hardly breathe. She pressed her palms to her wet cheeks, only then realizing she was crying. “I… We kinnae. Ye are to be wed.”

  “I’ll nae wed her,” he said in voice that was as unbending as the ancient bronze used to forge her father’s sword.

  “Ye must,” she said, trying to make her own tone as hard as his.

  “Nay, Marsaili.” His hand grabbed her wrists, but she jerked her arm away and swung toward him. His gaze burned into her. “How can I? I kinnae. I fooled myself into thinking I could. I will find another way.”

  “What way?” she demanded, praying he truly had an answer.

  “I dunnae ken,” he roared, “but I will find it.”

  Foolish hopes. That’s all they had.

  “Dunnae touch me!” she sobbed. If he did, she knew she would simply let him do as he pleased. If they shared another kiss, she would tell him of his son, and then he would feel obligated to wed her, even if their union would weaken his clan and bring another enemy to his doorstep. She had tasted his love for her in his kiss, seen it in his blazing eyes, felt it in the way he touched her, and heard it as truth from his lips. She would protect him from himself now.

  He gave her a beseeching look that tightened her belly painfully. “Lass—” He stopped abruptly and drew his sword. “Nay!” he roared, and behind her, she felt the sudden heat of a body. Then a hand was on her mouth, an arm around her waist, and she was jerked backward off her feet as six men charged past her. The last thing she saw as she was being taken was Callum’s sword plunging into the first warrior who reached him.

  Twelve

  Callum managed to kill the first two Gordons who attacked him, but when four more entered the cave just as he was yanking his sword from the last one he had felled, they advanced quickly under the shouted directives of Robert Gordon, Edina’s elder brother who despised Callum. Callum sliced one warrior across the chest, but before he could turn to ward off Robert, someone knocked him on the back of the head so hard that bright specs danced in his vision and the cave seemed to tilt.

  He stayed on his feet for another breath, but then a second hit to his head came, causing pain so intense that he clenched his teeth and fell to his knees. His vision blurred, and he blinked his eyes to clear it as his left arm was grasped. He blindly swung his sword upward, felt it knocked from his numb hand, and then his right arm was restrained. Whoever stood behind him yanked his head back. He squeezed his eyes shut again, his vision starting to clear, and with a roar, he strained against the men holding him to no avail.

  “I’d save yer strength,” Robert Gordon said, standing in front of him.

  Callum gnashed his teeth as he tried to bring his head forward to glare at Robert, but the grip one of the Gordon’s men had on his hair prevented any movement.

  “Leave go, Sully,” Robert ordered. Instantly, Callum’s head was released, and he brought his gaze to Robert’s.

  “Where’s the lass?” Callum growled. Since the moment Marsaili had told him that she had loved him, he’d known he could not marry Coira, yet he could not repeat his past mistakes. He had to find a way to save his clan without the union and somehow break his promise to Coira without hurting her or making an enemy of her father. The tasks seemed impossible, but not fighting for what he and Marsaili had was unthinkable. He needed her. She had taken his heart the day he had met her, and without her, he felt empty inside.

  Robert smirked. “Ye’re nae in a position to demand information from me. Does this lass mean something to ye?”

  “Nay,” he replied without hesitation. If Robert thought Marsaili was special to Callum, he would purposely harm her.

  As if Marsaili sensed she was being discussed, her scream of rage rent the air. Callum lost control, roaring in response and surging upward against the three men who restrained him. He managed to throw off the man who had been holding his left arm. He then drove his fist into the nose of his captor on the right. Bone crunched satisfyingly, and blood spurted from the wound. The man released him to grip his nose, giving Callum the opportunity he needed to gain his feet. He sprung up, spun around, and delivered two quick jabs to the windpipe of the man behind him.

  The man fell to his knees, gasping and wheezing for air. Behind Callum, the air swished, alerting him to danger. He swung toward the threat, but he was not fast enough. He saw the hilt of Robert’s sword coming but could do nothing to prevent the blow. He was struck once in the nose, then on the side of the head, which sent his vision black once again. But this time, he felt as if he were suddenly floating in the darkest loch he had ever seen. The water was warm, and he could not fight the temptation to simply close his eyes and drift.

  The grip on Marsaili’s chin made sharp pain throb on both sides of her jaw, but the tears swimming in her gaze were for Callum. He lay unconscious before her, blood trickling from a cut on his head and streaming from his nose.

  “I’ll only ask ye one more time,” the redheaded man before her said in a calm and eerily patient tone. She sensed he would relinquish a great amount of time to happily torture her if he thought it would get him the answers he sought. “Who are ye? And who are ye to the Grant?”

  Her thoughts seemed to collide with one another inside her head as she tried to determine the best way to answer. So far, she had refused to say anything, but that had caused Robert, as she’d heard him called, to have his men drag Callum outside the cave, his limp head banging against the ground as the men brought him to Robert’s feet. Who she truly was would both damn and save her. She knew the Gordons were her father’s allies, thus they would not kill her, but they would alert her father to where she was, and then any hope of escaping a life as the earl’s leman would be lost. Her father would triple the guards to take her there, and it would separate her from her son that much more.

  “Have it yer way,” Robert announced, his voice cutting through Marsaili’s thoughts. He waved a hand at his guard. “Cut off one of his fingers.”

  She gasped. “What? Nay!”

  “Aye,” the man said in that same calm voice, but this time he offered her a distinctively cruel smile. “For every lie ye tell me, I’ll take a finger off the Grant.”

  Her heart raced furiously in her chest. “Why?” she asked. “Why do ye do this?” She knew, of course, but she was desperate for time, any little bit she could get.

  Robert drew her face a hairbreadth from his. “This man shamed my sister when he broke his promise to wed her. He took her innocence, got her with child, and then the child died shortly after he was born. It near killed my sister, and she has nae recovered from the loss. He deserves to suffer, and I see before me the perfect weapon to bring him more misery. What a happy chance, too!” Robert said with a guffaw. “So are ye or are ye nae Coira, daughter of the Earl of Ainsworth, whom the Grant intends to wed to secure an alliance with Ainsworth to fight against my clan?”

  Marsaili had to clench her jaw against the desire to gape. Robert Gordon thought her to be Coira? He believed he had happened upon Callum with his soon-to-be wife? No wonder the man was gloating. He likely thought God had given him the perfect gift of revenge. It was both a nightmare and her only hope.

  “Aye, I am Coira,” she lied. “Please, I beg ye, spare Callum’s life and take mine instead.”

  “Dunnae fash yerself, lass,” Robert said, his voice baleful. “I’ll take yer life just to spite yer da, and I’ll spare the Grant so he may suffer the rest of his life without ye. He’ll ken well ye died a painful death because he’s going to watch ye die. It does nae matter how long it takes. And when ye’re dead, he’ll be a broken man, as my sister is a broken woman.”

  With those ominous words, Robert made quick work of binding her hands and her feet, and then he slung her belly-down across his destrier. The
wind gushed out of her lungs, and before she could even catch a breath, they were riding. With each jarring strike of the horse’s hooves against the ground, her head pounded, but she concentrated on one thought: she had to find a way to tell Callum he had a son in case she did not live to find the child herself.

  Callum’s thoughts floated just out of his reach, and he could not seem to remember where he was or what had happened. Something was not right, yet he could not recall what, and there was a dull ache that seemed a constant part of him. In the distance, something hung in the air, dangling, and he thought he saw a woman floating. But that was not right. It could not be.

  Heat washed over him for hours, light pressing on his eyelids, and then coolness came with dark and blessed silence. Then heat once more, brightness and noise. Time drifted by like this, repeating itself until he awoke with a start, rage and worry immediately washing over him and the realization that he’d been drifting in an out of waking, but for how many days, he did not know.

  Trying to ignore the thundering in his skull, he opened his eyes, the sun nearly blinding him. Flies buzzed around the cut on his head, the one Robert had given him. He struggled to swallow, his throat raw and burning. His eyes watered as they tried to adjust to the daylight. He tried to move his hands but couldn’t, then tried his feet to the same effect. Looking down, he grunted.

  A stake. He was tied to a stake! He brushed his fingertips against the unmistakable grain of wood that was often used for a binding stake. The familiar noises of a working castle surrounded him, like the sound of a smithy laboring with iron. He inhaled, and the scent of baking bread filled his nose. He was in the inner bailey of the Gordon castle. The questions now were what had Robert done with Marsaili and what did he intend to do next?

  Callum’s eyes finally stopped watering, and when he opened them, he glanced immediately to his left and right. Guard towers stood on both sides of him. He craned his head back to see the roof of the gatehouse above him. Squinting into the sun, he looked across the bailey, where guards, servants, and members of the Gordon clan milled about. There was a small group of people straight ahead of him at the far end of the bailey. They seemed to be gathered looking at something. He swept his gaze around, searching for what they were watching, and when he saw a woman standing with a basket on her hip and her head tilted back as if staring into the sky, he quickly looked up. His heart lurched, and his breath left him. There, suspended from an iron cage from the castle wall was Marsaili.